Woman of Three Worlds

by Jeanne Williams

  Everyone at the post attended the funeral. One of the blacksmiths had made a coffin of scrap wood and colored it with shoe blacking. The fair-haired little baby rested inside, cushioned by ivory silk and lace—Mrs. Shaw’s wedding gown.

  Chaplain Taunton read the service while all the women wept. Battle-hardened soldiers stood with bowed heads and misty eyes. Brittany’s voice wasn’t the only trembling one as the congregation followed Michael O’Shea’s clear rich baritone in singing “Nearer, My God, to Thee.”

  Jealously tended flowers were dropped gently inside the coffin before the lid was closed, and it was lowered into the grave dug laboriously in the hard, rocky earth. As the hole was filled in, the mother, a frail, pretty, dark-haired girl who looked younger than Brittany, stopped weeping in her husband’s arms and ran forward, battling off the men with their shovels. She flung herself on her knees, digging toward the coffin, screaming her baby’s name.

  “Melissa! ’Lissa!”

  Her husband caught her up and forced her, wildly struggling, away from the grave. The surgeon and Mrs. Shaw accompanied the bereaved couple back to their quarters while the pathetic grave was mounded neatly, covered with rocks to keep out predators, and marked, with a white cross some artistic soldier had carved with doves, the baby’s name and the dates: March 10–July 5, 1876.

  “What an exhibition!” Regina said when the Graves were back in their quarters. “That woman was dancing the other night, flirting with everyone, and probably the child was already starting to sicken!”

  “I heard Dr. Fenwick say the fever developed without warning,” Brittany demurred. Her heart ached for the mother, the more so if she might have some reason to blame herself. Why were children born if they had to die so soon?

  “It was still a shocking display,” Regina asserted. “Of course, it’ll get her petted and pampered by Mrs. Shaw.”

  “I should think you’d be afraid to talk like that,” Brittany said angrily. “How would you feel if one of your children died?”

  Regina paled. “It’s horrid of you to even suggest it!”

  “Not as horrid as what you’ve been saying.”

  “Ladies!” pleaded Edward. “Regina, my love—”

  She jerked free of his restraining arm, glaring at Brittany. “Whatever happened, you may be sure I’d conduct myself with dignity while in public! Anyway, I’ve no doubt she and the bugler will quickly make another!”

  They did not. Pretty Mollie Stroud came down with the fever her baby had died of, and before week’s end the garrison sang beside another, larger grave. Stroud tried to play “Taps” but broke down and couldn’t finish.

  After that funeral Regina had nothing to say.

  A few days later, still depressed by the deaths, Brittany escaped from the house and decided to go to the trader’s. She had no money to spend but she could look around. Michael O’Shea had been detailed to guard a wagon train bound for Tucson, so there was no prospect of a ride or his teasing gallantry, which added spice and pleasure to days that Regina seemed bent on poisoning.

  “Will you miss me?” O’Shea had asked when he came to say he’d be gone for a time.

  “Of course,” she said truthfully. “There’s no one else to make me laugh.”

  He groaned at that and shook a warning finger. “Just you wait, Brittany! Someday I’ll make you do more than laugh.”

  As he strode off with a jingle of spurs, she wondered if she ought to tell him that she couldn’t feel more for him than friendship and the physical attraction that was probably bound to occur between young, healthy people who were often together.

  If she hadn’t met Zach, perhaps even if he hadn’t kissed her, she might have been beguiled into thinking herself in love with Michael. Not now, though she wasn’t sure that what she felt for Zach was love.

  He filled her thoughts; when she went to bed at night or lay dreamily half awake mornings, she’d feel the embrace of his eyes, relive being held in his arms, and tremble, blood turning slow and sweetly drunken, as she’d remember kisses that plundered till she ached to give.

  It might not be love, but it certainly kept her from loving anyone else. Still, she was worrying too much about the state of Michael’s heart. She was learning enough of army life to understand that a young officer was almost duty-bound to court any available woman with a dashing romanticism that shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

  A chorus of jeers and cruel laughter broke through her reverie as she neared the school. “Bug eater!” a childish voice called. “Dirty, stinking Injun! Dirty, stinking Injun!”

  The chant was taken up. Brittany hurried around the building to see a ring of post children encircling a small lone figure. The Apache boy, called Jody as an approximation of his real name, had picked up a rock and turned his head warily to watch his tormentors. Several bigger boys were scratched or bleeding. Evidently, Jody had beaten them back. One of the marred youngsters, Captain Fenwick’s thirteen-year-old Theodore, held a wriggling lizard.

  “Come on!” he shouted to his friends. “Let’s give the little red devil a bite of his favorite food!”

  A dozen boys ran in to fall upon the small captive. Ned was among them. Angela was one of the girls who jumped up and down and squealed in mock horror and real delight. Jody won a yelp from Theodore before disappearing beneath a pile of scuffling, shouting boys.

  “Stop it!” cried Brittany.

  The girls quieted, abashed, but the boys didn’t hear. She had to wade in and bodily drag them up, hurling them aside with little worry over whether she hurt them or not. “Get away! Leave him alone!”

  Several of the youngsters were as big as she was. Before they sobered at the fact that an adult had interfered, she had a cut lip, grazes, and a jaw that felt paralyzed by a sharp elbow.

  “Here, lads, that’s enough!” Sergeant Meadows, a lanky tallow-haired man with a handlebar moustache, lunged forward and hauled the tangle off till Jody could be seen. To Brittany, the sergeant drawled, “You must like cat-and-dog fights, ma’am.”

  “I don’t like them a bit!” she blazed, outraged at his amused scrutiny and lack of concern for Jody, who had scrambled up and come to stand by her, close as a shadow, rock still clutched in his fingers as if to defend them both. “You don’t seem to be deaf, Sergeant! Why did you let this happen?”

  He gave a careless hitch of his shoulders, spat tobacco in the dust close to her skirt. “Ma’am, I’ve seen too many people roasted upside down till their brains fried to care what happens to that little varmint. You ask me, Tyrell was a fool to bring him in.”

  “I suppose you’d have left him out in the desert.”

  Meadows showed big yellowed teeth. “No, ma’am.” He made a slicing gesture across his throat. Brittany recoiled.

  “How can you teach him if you feel like that?”

  “I can’t. And he can’t learn. Dumb heathen.” He gave her an insolent looking over and a slow grin. “Now, if he was a tad older, I’d reckon you could teach him, ma’am. Or he’d teach you. I’d think you’d have learned your lesson. Three men dead on that stage you came in on!”

  “All right,” said Brittany abruptly. “I will teach him.”

  The soldier looked dismayed. “But the colonel said—”

  “I’ll talk to the colonel.”

  Meadows scowled. “Can’t wait to get me in trouble, can you?”

  “I can’t get you in as much as you deserve!” Brittany turned her back on him and took the small scratched hand. “Come with me, Jody.”

  He held to her, trotting so close that he was nearly hidden in her skirts as they cut across the parade ground. She had almost immediately discarded the impulse to dash furiously into headquarters. Far better to go to Mrs. Shaw.

  Miranda Shaw’s hazel eyes lost their calm as Brittany told what had happened. “I should have known. Children can be cruel enough to newcomers of their kind.” She sighed, looking regretfully at the boy. “My husband will speak to Meadows, of course, and order the men
to instruct their children that such nastiness won’t be allowed. Still, that’ll only make them treat Jody worse in sly little ways they can’t be caught at. Maybe he’d be better off at the reservation, though Zach Tyrell’s sure that his close family’s hiding out in Mexico.”

  “If he could learn how to read, write, and do sums, he could help his people hold their own with whites,” said Brittany. “Let me teach him, Mrs. Shaw.”

  “You think Regina would let him study with Ned and Angela?”

  Not even to please the commander’s wife would Regina allow that. Brittany shook her head. “I could spend a few hours with him in the afternoon, though.”

  Mrs. Shaw laughed and raised a quizzical eyebrow. “What will Lieutenant O’Shea say about that?”

  “Maybe he’ll help.”

  After a surprised look, Mrs. Shaw nodded. “Maybe he will.”

  They said their good-byes, but as Brittany turned to go, Jody wouldn’t release her. “Oh dear!” said Mrs. Shaw and called toward the kitchen. “Marie, will you please bring Jody some cookies and sarsaparilla?”

  Jody accepted the plump raisin cookies, but he kept a tight grip on Brittany’s fingers as he munched watchfully. He gulped down the drink too without relinquishing his grasp.

  “I wish I could take him home,” Brittany said. “But there really isn’t room.” And if there were, Regina would still have fits.

  Mrs. Shaw said regretfully, “The colonel and I haven’t been able to win Jody. I’m afraid we’re too old for him to be happy or at ease with us.” She hesitated. “I’d like to invite you to stay here, but that would be rather delicate.”

  It would indeed. A discontented wife could sap a man’s spirit, and Mrs. Shaw’s most important duty was to keep peace in her official family. Jody’s desperate clinging had set Brittany to thinking, though, and she made a sudden but wholehearted decision.

  “Mrs. Shaw, one of the laundresses’ quarters is empty since Mrs. Stroud died. If the colonel could appoint me in her place, I could earn my own living and keep Jody with me.” As Mrs. Shaw stared, Brittany went on hastily, “I—I haven’t been that successful with teaching Ned and Angela, and we’re badly crowded. If I could repay my cousin for my stage fare, she might be glad to have me out of the house. Do—do you suppose I might borrow from you and pay back the loan from my laundress’s salary?”

  “My dear, that’s hard work! It’ll ruin your hands and—”

  Now that she’d seen a way out of being Regina’s unpaid servant, Brittany realized how thoroughly she had loathed the situation. She could have put up with having not even a cubbyhole of her own, but to be at Regina’s capricious beck and call and to spend hours trying to interest her reluctant small cousins while there was not a wisp of love or fun in those cramped quarters—

  “Please, Mrs. Shaw!” Brittany drew the child in front of her. “Neither of us belongs on Officers’ Row. I don’t mind the work. It’ll be wonderful to have a place of my own.”

  “Perhaps you should think it over,” Mrs. Shaw suggested.

  Brittany smiled down at Jody. “I can’t stay at Regina’s with him hanging on to me.”

  Mrs. Shaw smiled. “All right, my dear, I think you’ve decided. I’ll send our striker with you to help you move, and I’ll go right now to the colonel and get you assigned to the Stroud quarters. How much do you owe your cousin?”

  She supplied the money from a small drawer in an antique secretary. Then she walked briskly off to headquarters while Brittany, with big, slow-moving Private Dowd, the Shaws’ striker, marched toward her interview with Regina.

  It was short and even more than predictably acrimonious, for Ned and Angela had rushed home to say that Jody had attacked them with a rock and when they’d protected themselves, Cousin Brittany had jerked them around and hurt them.

  When Regina’s first storm ended, Brittany said quietly, “Ned was in a bunch of boys who were abusing Jody, and Angela was cheering them on. They both need whipping. But how you rear them is no longer any concern of mine. Here’s my stage fare. If I may pack my valise, I’ll get out of your way.”

  “Don’t you bring that filthy little beast in here!”

  “Then maybe you’d be good enough to hand my things out?”

  “It’ll be a pleasure! Why I ever thought someone out of the swamps could fit in my home, tutor my children—You—you and that savage belong together!”

  Regina came back with the valise, into which she had stuffed Brittany’s clothes in the way most apt to wrinkle them. Almost tossing it at her, she said haughtily, “When you tire of your washboard, don’t come crawling to me! I no longer consider you my kinswoman.”

  Brittany wished she could say the same, but in her opinion, blood relationship couldn’t be altered. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” she said as Dowd picked up the valise.

  Regina sneered. “No doubt you can marry an enlisted man. You can be sure Lieutenant O’Shea won’t seek you out over on Soapsuds Row—or if he does, it will be with intentions suitable to your choice.”

  Some devil made Brittany retort, “Zach Tyrell’s no officer. I daresay he’ll come to see me.”

  She drew a primitive, unholy joy from the jealous blaze in Regjna’s cat eyes. “You slut! That’s why you’re moving, isn’t it? The Apache brat’s just a screen to get the Shaws on your side!”

  “Think what you want to,” Brittany shrugged.

  Hand in hand with Jody, she gladly left Officers’ Row and started down the road that twisted to the adobes occupied by laundresses and other civilian employees of the post, mostly muleskinners and blacksmiths.

  Corporal Stroud had moved back to barracks. He or the other laundresses had tidied the single room, though a packed earth floor didn’t need much cleaning. A table, two chairs, washstand, chest of drawers, and cord bed with a grass-filled tick were the furnishings.

  “You’ll share the kitchen with the other laundresses,” Private Dowd explained. “I’ll fetch bedding from the quartermaster. The boy’ll need a cot, and I’ll draw you a few days’ rations.”

  Before he could return with these necessaries, Mrs. Shaw arrived, followed by one of Mr. DeLong’s assistants, trundling a wheelbarrow. As he unloaded everything from food to curtain material and a coal-oil lamp, Mrs. Shaw cut off Brittany’s protest.

  “Nonsense, dear. The colonel and I are responsible for Jody’s expenses.” She glanced around the spartan room. “You’re sure you want to go through with it?”

  “Oh, yes!” said Brittany with fervor. “It’s going to be wonderful to have my own place again.”

  “Then,” said Mrs. Shaw with a twinkle, “I’m empowered by my husband to inform you that you’ve been appointed a company laundress and are entitled to quarters, rations, fuel, medical services, and transport if the company is transferred. You also will receive three dollars a month from the pay of each enlisted man whose washing you do.”

  For the first time Brittany confronted the reality of her new life. Visions of vast heaps of dirty socks, underwear, and clothing rose before her. “How many men will I wash for?” she asked.

  “Laundresses are appointed in the ratio of one per nineteen and a half men,” chuckled Mrs. Shaw. “If you can’t keep up with that at first, I’m sure Mrs. O’Malley would do some of yours. After all, she’d get their money—which, by the way, you’re sure to get, since it’s deducted at the pay table.”

  Dowd came with a cot, bedding, beans, beef, hardtack, dessicated vegetables, bacon, and such items as flour, salt, and coffee. Mrs. Shaw sent him after Jody’s things and looked searchingly at Brittany before she gave a smiling nod. “Good luck, my dear. I hope you’ll bring Jody to see me now and then. Let me know if you have any problems.”

  She was gone with a gentle rustle of skirts. Left alone, Brittany took a deep breath and sat down, smiling at Jody, who watched her cautiously for a moment and then, slowly, grinned from ear to ear. Only now did his small hand begin to relax.

  “We’re home, Jody,” B
rittany said. She gestured around the room and back to them. “You and I. Home.”

  Pushing his tongue against the word as if it were something he could taste, he said, “Home!”

  And let go of her hand.

  VIII

  Dowd brought extra shirts, pants, socks, and underwear for Jody, toothbrush and comb, towels and washcloths. “He carried on so when we tried to cut his hair that Mrs. Shaw said to let it go for a while,” the big striker said. “Holler or not, he’s had his head washed till I’d reckon all the nits are gone, but it won’t hurt to keep an eye out.” He gazed at Brittany between disapproval and wonder. “If he gives you the slip and runs off, don’t feel too bad. He’d probably keep alive on roots and bugs till he found his people or they chanced on to him.”

  Jody showed no inclination to go anywhere but watched Brittany put his things in the lower drawers, hers in the top, and hang her few gowns on pegs. The Bible and Lear went on top of the chest and they were moved in. It remained to store their rations in the shared kitchen. Indicating to Jody that he could help her, Brittany picked up a load of staples and opened the door.

  Bridget O’Malley was building a fire in the iron cookstove. Satisfied that it was going, she put the lid in place and gave Brittany a wary appraisal with those remarkably beautiful violet eyes. Her glance flicked to Jody, who stood clutching a slab of somewhat moldy bacon.

  “Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “I seen you at the dance with that handsome lieutenant and you be that stuck-up Mrs. Graves’ cousin. I bet you never used a washboard in your life!”

  “You’re wrong there,” said Brittany cheerfully. “I’ve helped with laundry ever since I was big enough not to fall into the tub. My cousin and I don’t get along too well. I decided I’d rather be under my own roof.”

  “Doing troopers’ laundry? A lady like you?”

  Brittany shrugged. “It’s honest work.”

  “But this Apache kid—”

  “He got hold of me and wouldn’t let go.”

  Examining the boy curiously, Bridget said in surprise, “Why, he’s a cute little guy, ain’t he? Not even very dark-skinned. Those big, melting eyes sort of get at you.” She laughed suddenly, good-natured lines forming at the corners of her shrewd eyes. “It’s all over the post how you broke up that dogpile he was under, and there’s some as is mad. But hell’s sweet bells, this tyke’s no monster. He’s just a boy.”